The first UK school whose teachers have all served in the armed forces is actively recruiting prospective pupils with a view to opening in 2013.
Captain AK Burki is handing out leaflets in a busy Oldham shopping centre for the school he hopes one day to run as head teacher.
"All the teaching staff will be composed of ex-servicemen and women," he tells passing shoppers.
"They will be able to bring a breadth of experience that only those in the armed forces can," he explains to a mother, who is concerned about her daughter's education.
It is a world away from the front line in Afghanistan, where Captain Burki completed a tour of duty in 2010.
"The elements of the armed forces we really want to instil in the pupils are the core values of the Army," says Capt Burki. "Courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment."
The group planning the Phoenix Free School in Oldham say they are pleased with the response so far - 60 children have been signed up. In February, they plan to submit their application to the Department for Education.
The idea of the Phoenix school was conceived by Tom Burkard, himself a former teacher and military instructor. He says the school will teach children between the ages of 11 and 18, and encourage high standards of behaviour, literacy and numeracy.
"Discipline is an absolute first priority," he says. "We are going to be using a house system where we are going to be building teamwork through competition.
"We plan to use competition to make sure all children develop the interest it takes to know enough about a subject so the subject becomes interesting in itself."
Burkard has been pushing the idea for several years, In 2008 he wrote a report Troops to Teachers for the Centre for Policy Studies, urging the government to adopt a successful US-style programme which retrains ex-servicemen and women as teachers. It suggested ex-forces staff could have a profound effect on discipline and learning.
It is an idea supported by the government. In the 2010 Schools White Paper, Education Secretary Michael Gove unveiled plans to offer former troops sponsorship to retrain as teachers.
The scheme is expected to come into force later this year.
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Pick up your schoolbooks and march!
Pick up your schoolbooks and march!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Pick up your schoolbooks and march!
An idea such as that would serve quite well in the inner-city schools in the US.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato